buckethead made an instore appearance today at streetlight records in santa cruz. he will be performing and singing autographs at the streelight in san jose tomorrow. since the santa cruz streetlight is small and the aisles are tight, i didn't think there would be any area for buckethead to setup for a performance. i thought santa cruz would be autographs only. he is scheduled to appear at both places at 6pm.

after work, i went straight to streetlight. i forgot that wednesday is farmer's market day and all the parking is taken up. luckily, i was able to find a space in the parking structure, which isn't too far from streetlight but i would never park there on a regular day to go to streetlight. i got to streetlight at about 5:30pm and browse for about 10 minutes. i didn't see anything setup and then suddenly i realized there was a short line in the folk/blues type area: buckethead! there was a table with some buckethead postcards and posters taped to it. ok, definitely autographs only. so i got in line. i was about 15th-20th in line. it varied due to the amount of people that cut in as we waited. after a few minutes, the store started playing buckethead's music very loud. eventually they turned it down. i guess it was driving away customers. pretty much every customer stared at the buckethead line with that "what the fuck is going on" look.

at 6pm, an employee said that buckethead would be there shortly. in 10-15 minutes, his management arrived and started setting up speakers. i couldn't believe buckethead was going to actually perform! we waited and waited. it wasn't any fun waiting in line without any of my friends. at 7pm, the employee again said that buckethead would be there shortly. at about 7:30pm, the masked one arrived. there was applause. he was wearing the same stuff he's been wearing at all the concerts i've been to. he walked down the aisle next to the line and for some reason, he seamed much shorter than i thought he was or remembered him to be. maybe i'm just getting used to his height.

buckethead immediately plugged in. feedback. ouch. rock! it was so fucking loud, i think it drove any customers that were still there out. it was so tight, setup so simple, so low key an atmosphere. it was like being inside buckethead's bedroom. it was beautiful. he had drum tracks and some samples but other than that, it was pure buckethead. he had wooden nunchaku, giant robot doll, and herbie. during the middle of the set, buckethead gave his guitar to some kid who had won a contest 2 years ago. it was his old multi-color guitar, not the new white ones. in total, buckethead played for about 30 minutes.

after the set, it took them a few minutes to move things and put the table back for autographs. there were free posters and postcards. there were new markers. i think there were even two colors: black and silver. they were prepared! i had buckethead sign some cds. with hand motions, buckethead asked for my name and wrote it on the cds. it was kind of funny because he had trouble writing my name. i guess his hearing was shot from playing so loud. then i had him sign some posters for friends who couldn't be there. funny again because he had no trouble spellling "ricardo", but messed up on "twiddle thumbs". again, it must be a hearing issue. maybe i should give buckethead some earplugs.

after that, i waited outside for 10 minutes for twiddle thumbs to show up after getting out from her class. i couldn't stand waiting around out there because i just can't stand still. i really have a hard time waiting in place when i could be moving around. so i went back into the store and browsed around until twiddle thumbs showed up. buckethead was still signing autographs, but since i got something signed for and we're going to san jose tomorrow, she didn't get in the line.